Rym Momtaz
Surely enough, barely a week into Donald Trump’s second term as U.S. President, many European officials are alighting at the Panicked and Dazed Station in Trumpland.
While it may have been somewhat understandable when Trump first burst onto the international political scene eight years ago, today, it mainly confirms what he’s always thought of them: that, to paraphrase him, at best, they are weak and meek, and at worst, are mendacious losers who don’t have any fight in them and want to placate the United States to keep free-riding on it.
Even before he was officially inaugurated, Trump’s team attempted to put Europe in a chokehold to paralyze it into submission. They rolled out a trifecta of threats to impose tariffs, pull support from NATO if European tech regulations weren’t loosened, and take over Greenland by force.
It has given Trump and the EU’s adversaries the impression that the power dynamic is lopsidedly in his favor, and that the Europeans, too helpless and dependent on the United States, have only one option: to surrender.
The Europeans’ track record so far supports this perception, but cold facts indicate the EU has powerful economic leverage. Admittedly, using it requires a DNA change. The twenty-seven member states will need to stay united, and accept that the clock has run out and they can no longer avoid negotiating new terms for the transatlantic alliance. This is bound to come at a very high short-term cost too with Trump’s aggressive measures forcing the EU to start de-risking certain aspects of its relationship with Washington. A tall order indeed, but existential crises like the one they are now confronting with the confluence of Trump, Russia and China, have a way of making the improbable possible.
No comments:
Post a Comment